10 Signs of a Husband with Narcissistic Traits

Sign 6: Extreme jealousy of other men.

The narcissistic husband is extremely jealous of other men. Now, one common behavior we see related to this sign is for the husband to scrutinize the wife’s conversations with other men. He really wants to know every detail of what was said and what was meant by what was said—like being interested in the tone of the conversation, the nonverbal communication, hidden messages, and suggestions that may be occurring in that discussion. Typically, how this plays out is that the husband keeps on asking until he finds something to latch onto, even if the conversations are really innocuous.

Essentially, he’s just conducting an interrogation, waiting for some sort of slip-up or looking for an opportunity to misinterpret. So, when he finds something he can latch onto, he’s going to accuse the wife of being interested in another man, spending too much time with another man, or getting too close to another man.

The husband is going to provide reasons why he is a better choice as a mate than another man, even though the wife isn’t requesting that information. Sometimes this can escalate to where the husband demands that the wife not have any contact with other men, which, of course, can be very disruptive. It can mean the wife leaves the workforce or abandons other social activities, so there’s an isolation component with this particular sign.

Sign 7: Envious of wife’s success.

The husband is envious of the wife’s success. So, I want to clarify the difference here between envy and jealousy. Envy is defined as an unpleasant, often painful emotion characterized by feelings of inferiority, hostility, and resentment produced by an awareness that another person enjoys a desired possession. Envy is sometimes called the only unpleasant sin. Many people use the words jealousy and envy interchangeably, but we do see a distinction between the two. Jealousy involves a third party and is caused by a fear of losing a possession to a third party. Typically, the narcissist thinks of that possession as a person, specifically his wife.

So, this is like the behavior I mentioned in sign number six. The husband is envious of the wife’s success across many domains: financial success, even if that financial success helps the narcissistic husband; social success, like when the wife has friends; career advancement, regardless of financial rewards that are associated with it; and the wife’s rank or status in an organization. The husband may suggest that the wife’s job title is inflated, so he may try to minimize her accomplishments. He might say, “They call you a manager—who do you manage?” Or the husband may make fun of the job titles the wife has, saying, “Oh, you’re a supervisor; is that what they call the person who sits at a desk and does nothing?”

Where the husband might say, “You’re a vice president; isn’t that just a glorified secretary?” This specific term, “glorified secretary,” is used quite a bit by narcissists. I’ve noticed this in my clinical experience when treating victims of narcissists and when treating narcissists. I’ve also found that the rank is more offensive to the narcissist than the earnings. So, if a husband who’s narcissistic has a wife that earns more, sometimes he can tolerate that. But if she has a higher rank, that’s going to be a problem for him.

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